If you stream music (and who doesn't these days) you've obviously come across abbreviations at the end of the audio files. The acronyms reading WAV, FLAC, MP3 and so on, are called audio codecs. You ...

Digital sound is nothing more than numbers. What separates one container from another is how those numbers are packed, how much data (if any) is thrown away, and which devices understand the result.

If your audio fidelity experience has only been in the form of CDs, MP3s, or lower-quality streaming services (such as Spotify and YouTube Music), you may be missing out on some audio bliss. There’s a ...

In previous installments of the AudioFile, we’ve talked about basic PCM audio, which encodes audio into a series of numbers that a computer can play or manipulate. We’ve also discussed the process of ...

iTunes is a powerful audio player that supports a variety of formats, including the space-saving MP3 and AAC, the uncompressed AIFF and WAV, and the proprietary Apple Lossless. But as you explore the ...

If you use iTunes or if you buy and download digital music, you’ll have come across a number of terms and abbreviations that describe digital audio files. This alphabet soup can be quite confusing.

Digital music comes in many different formats – almost everyone knows MP3 thanks to Napster at the end of the last century, but what about OGG, AIFF, MQA or DSD? Confused? Don't worry, we're here to ...

Lossless audio is the first step toward audio nirvana. But what is it, does it really make a difference, and how can you get it? Here’s what to know. There’s a difference, of course, between “putting ...